GeoDigital, a spatial data and analytics company, announced today its transmission industry vegetation solution has been selected by PPL Electric Utilities.

The Pennsylvania-based utility, which provides electricity to 1.4 million customers and manages approximately 5,000 miles of transmission network, will implement the end-to-end pre-configured vegetation management solution. The solution combines GeoDigital’s LiDAR-based 3D mapping, analytics, and location-based work management software to meet overall vegetation management objectives including reliability, efficiency and safety.

“GeoDigital’s solution will provide us with a complete, timely and precise picture of the vegetation surrounding our critical transmission assets, allowing us to improve reliability by precisely managing the vegetation with a high risk of causing an outage, better coordinating line maintenance efforts for the convenience of our customers, and reducing our overall vegetation management program costs” said Adam Morse, Vegetation Manager at PPL Electric Utilities. “Trees are the number one cause of outages during storms and PPL has been working with GeoDigital for a number of years as part of our ongoing commitment to system reliability. We reduced tree-related outages by 18 percent in 2014 compared to the average of the previous 10 years. Now that GeoDigital has combined all of the capabilities into a single solution, we believe we can further increase the effectiveness and efficiency of our vegetation management program.”

“PPL Electric Utilities has been a valued partner of GeoDigital for many years and an early adopter of vegetation mapping for NERC compliance” said Chris Warrington, GeoDigital’s CEO. “GeoDigital is proud that such an innovative utility has selected our transmission industry solution to help streamline the entire vegetation management process – setting a new standard for North American utilities in their quest to further improve reliability, safety, customer service, efficiency and compliance.” Warrington continues, “Every industry needs people with vision, passion and leadership. PPL Electric Utilities clearly demonstrates these attributes with this decision.”

Recent regulatory changes such as FAC-003-3 reflect the need for utilities to improve the precision and effectiveness of their vegetation programs to further increase reliability. Former NERC Senior Investigator Robert Novembri stated, “Having evaluated the GeoDigital solution and determining that it has the capability to support FAC-003-3 compliance, it is great to see its adoption and implementation by leading utilities like PPL. Combining an annual reflight program on NERC critical lines with vegetation analytics, work management, and planning software provides a solution that supports utilities with attaining full compliance with FAC-003-3. It is critical that the industry leverage technology to protect the bulk power system in North America from vegetation related outages. GeoDigital’s transmission solution represents a significant step in addressing this critical need.”

GeoDigital’s Transmission industry solution for vegetation management is the industry’s first preconfigured solution and is designed to improve system reliability with precision vegetation management, reduce cost of vegetation management programs and support compliance with FAC-003-3. The solution spans the geospatial lifecycle including GeoDigital Digitize – precision survey and mapping using LiDAR and high definition imagery updated on an annual basis, GeoDigital Analyze – patented analytics to predict and prioritize vegetation which could create the risk of an outage, GeoDigital Explore – the ability to explore these insights in 3D, and GeoDigital Work – to turn insight into action with location-based work management software. By providing precision insights, GeoDigital can help utilities prioritize and predict vegetative threats to improve reliability, reduce vegetation management costs, and simplify compliance.